What do you know?

I’m thinking of starting another special day of the week. Well, sort of. I’m thinking that the occasional Tuesday would be good for diggin into music’s past, a past that’s a bit older than just classic rock or something. Anyway, since I got this hair to do it, I’m going to do it when it strikes me as I’m not sure I’ll do enough research into older material to be good at exposing it here. We’ll see…

What better song to start with than Wonderful World? I’m betting most people would know some version of this song. My earliest memory of it comes from a movie, Witness. There’s scene where Harrison Ford is singing and dancing around his busted car to this song and he’s singing it to the actress. Actually the movie itself is really good. It seems era movies are probably a good way to learn of older music. Don’t ya think? Well, not always an era pic, as it was also recently featured in Hitch with Will Smith.

One thing I didn’t know about this song is the title. I seriously thought it was called Don’t Know Much… I’m happy I got corrected on that before I titled it that in the post. As for learning about Sam Cooke himself, I got an education about him from Jeff Scott Soto. I remember at one point cruising around Burbank with him when he told me about Steve Perry being a Sam Cooke clone. I had no idea what he meant until he played me some Journey and some Sam Cooke back to back. At that point I really heard it and I had to agree with that assessment.

Did you know the song was written in 1958? It wasn’t released until 1960. I always assumed that huge delays in song releases started happening in the 80’s. Shows you what I know eh? What’s interesting is that Sam didn’t write it by himself. He co-wrote it with Lou Adler and Herb Alpert. Herb I know I’ve heard of, but Lou is a new name to me. Obviously I know the music though. Sam produced it himself and the background vocals were done by Lou Rawls, another name I’m familiar with.

The great thing about a classic song of this magnitude is that it has enjoyed going up the charts more than once. That’s a sure sign that it’s timeless. Especially when those trips up the charts are decades apart. What a wonderful world it would be to write one great song, let alone several. If you’re not familiar with Sam Cooke, you need to start going well beyond this song. Sam redefined music and created a whole genre with his presence. That’s pretty powerful wouldn’t you say?

If there’s another voice like his with that character and quality, I’d sure like to know about it. Oft imitated but not properly duplicated. Don’t have this song in your collection? Don’t have any Sam Cooke in your collection? You best save face and hit iTunes ASAFP.

(** Disclaimer: If Sam’s label decides to make my world a little less wonderful, I’ll have to reprimand the audio to the principle’s office. The post will remain to show that I’m interested in music history and sharing it with ya – that’s wonderful right? **)